


Desdemona

by Bunney



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-22
Updated: 2012-09-22
Packaged: 2017-11-14 20:24:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/519179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bunney/pseuds/Bunney
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lucius learns the hard way that love is everlasting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Desdemona

When his daughter was born, Lucius Malfoy held her frail, shivering body in his hands and felt love bloom in his heart. She was perfect: ten fingers, ten toes, fuzzy blonde curls that covered her delicate skull, thin eyelashes fanning in a dusky half-circle on her cheeks. Only her perfection was tainted by her tiny heart, beating as swiftly as a hummingbird's wings, blood painting rivulets onto her chest with each frantic thump. Narcissa whispered from the birthing bed, to the midwife already packing her tools and potions into her satchel:

"But why?" she asked. "Why is her heart outside her body, where it doesn't belong?"

The midwife shrugged, jaded to such defects amongst the devoutly pureblood. "Who knows?" she said as she tossed her cloak over her shoulders, careful to tuck away the money pouch Lucius had already given her, as if afraid he'd snatch it back now that the small, damaged thing had been birthed. "Nothing can be done, but to put it out of its misery." 

Lucius rose from his chair, clutching his dying daughter close to his chest. He pointed to the hearth and roared, "Get out! Begone you foul hag!"

The old witch gave him a look of infinite sadness, for this wasn't the first Pureblood child born that would die within a span of hours. It was the penitence of bigotry and breeding within the family. She stepped into the fireplace and vanished in a swirl of ash and green flame.

"Give her to me, Lucius. Let her have at least one suckle at my breast before she's gone." Narcissa's voice was as chilled as ever, but Lucius, who knew her better than most, could hear the crushing grief trembling beneath it. He sat upon the side of the bed and gently passed their daughter to her. Narcissa brought the whimpering, gasping child to her breast and guided her nipple between the bluish lips. The child was too weak to take the nourishment; she could only continue to struggle for breath, for life. As Lucius watched, the baby turned silent and gray, her tiny mouth slackened around Narcissa's breast.

Her heart - her fragile, misplaced heart - stilled forever.

Lucius lay down beside his wife and covered the child's not-beating heart with his hand. "We shall name her Desdemona, for the stars have not shone kindly upon her."

Narcissa nodded, her eyes dry and her soul weeping. "Yes, Desdemona. My dearest."

 

***** 

 

When the next daughter was born, they rejoiced for she was strong and healthy and so very beautiful. Lucius was certain that his heart would never heal after the death of Desdemona, but Devora filled that empty place with her sweet smiles and her blue, blue eyes. She would grow up to be beautiful, and accomplished, and loved by all who would know her.

Only she didn't.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Malfoy, there's nothing we can do."

Narcissa's arms tightened around Devora, but the child gave little notice of it. Her lethargy had spread so quickly, her happy disposition vanishing as violent seizures began to steal her health. The healers at St. Mungo's had quickly found the cause, but it was too late.

"How? How could this happen?" Lucius asked, his voice strong, commanding, even if his heart was dying inside his chest.

The healer grimaced, uncomfortable with their sorrow. "Birth defects are becoming more and more common amongst Purebloods..." He paused in the face of Lucius Malfoy's implacable belief that the purest of blood offered immunity. "Take her home, Mr. Malfoy. Take her home and make her comfortable."

Narcissa smoothed Devora's blonde hair away from her pale face, and placed a gentle kiss upon her brow. "How long?" she asked, her lips moving against her child's soft skin.

"Not long. A day, maybe two."

Three days later, Narcissa dressed her daughter in palest yellow, and laid a white rose upon her chest, Devora's favorite doll at her side. She would rest with her sister forevermore.

 

***** 

 

Lucius, in his overwhelming grief, turned to darker influences. Promises of cleansing, and purification of race, and the superiority of wizards tempted him away from Narcissa and her optimistic desires for a family. He turned from her, and went to _him_ , and madness reigned. Talk of babies, and nurseries, and childish things were secrets Narcissa stowed away in her heart as she watched her husband become a man to be feared.

His touch was perfunctory, hard and bruising, and more often than not, Narcissa cried herself to sleep after Lucius left her wanting, left to answer the call of his Master. She had dared to offer complaint, dared to raise her voice in fury over the creature that held sway over him, and of her mad sister who offered temptation of a different sort. He took her in anger on a night in September, on the floor like any common Mudblood whore. She refused his drunken desire and he had taken her in spite of it. 

Later, Narcissa sat in her bath and wished that her body would reject his seed, wished that any child of theirs, so longed for, would not be conceived in rage and rape.

 

*****

 

When she felt the first stirrings of life in her belly, for the third time, she kept her confidence and left Lucius ignorant of the growing child. She prayed to the God she knew and to those she didn't that this child would be healthy. 

By Christmas, the signs of her pregnancy were too obvious to ignore. Her flat stomach rounded, her cheeks grew rosy. They say that pregnant women glow and Narcissa seemed to carry an aura about her that drew even the Dark Lord's curious attention. Babies didn't interest him, however, nor did Narcissa. His concerns were of domination, and of war, and the extermination of the impure. Not of Pureblood babies who would likely die before taking their first step.

"I'm so sorry, my love," Lucius whispered against her stomach. He pressed a kiss to her navel and cupped one heavy breast. "How you must hate me."

Narcissa stroked his sleek blond head and closed her eyes. "No, I could never hate you. All I ask is that you love this child. Lucius, love him with all your heart."

The sound of her conviction was painful, because Lucius knew that it was pointless. This baby would die like the others and he didn't think he could give away his love so readily again. "So sure that it will be a boy, then?" He moved his hand to rest atop her stomach.

Narcissa gently smiled and laced her fingers through his. "I know it. They say the Muggle God answers prayers and I've not stopped praying to Him since I knew I was pregnant. Surely He won't turn his back on me. Surely He is not that cruel."

Lucius kept his peace regarding Narcissa's foolish faith in anything Muggle and continued to stroke her stomach, and wondered if the wisdom in following his own god was sour wisdom indeed.

 

*****

 

The boy screamed lustily, his delicate features screwed up into an angry frown. He was still attached to Narcissa by the long, bloody cord, but the midwife swept him up from between Narcissa's legs and laid him atop her bare stomach. The hag's wrinkled face creased in a toothless smirk as she set about using her wand to separate mother and child. 

Lucius leaned over and cupped the boy's small head. "So angry, my son. There's certainly nothing wrong with his lungs, is there?" Despite his belief that all love had fled his heart, he could feel it swell overfull again. Love at first sight was not such an illusion after all. This screaming, squirming boy, his _son_ , would be Lucius's redemption. 

His immortality.

And, God help him, he felt _love_.

"There will be no more," the midwife spoke with matter-of-fact cruelty. Narcissa's eyes slipped closed on a sigh and Lucius felt her pain keenly. "You had best hope that this one doesn't go the way of the others, or that will be the end of the Malfoys."

"I have prayed to God and He has answered my prayer," Narcissa said with dreamy certainty. She guided the boy's mouth to her breast and he latched on with greedy hunger, bringing a gasp to her lips.

The hag gave a wheezing laugh. "God? More Muggle trickery. You would be better served offering trinkets to Merlin for your luck."

"If my wife says that her God answered her prayer, then answer it He did!" Lucius snarled, prepared to defend Narcissa's faith, even he himself scorned it.

The midwife was unafraid of him, for she had brought him into the world, bloody and screaming, like the infant suckling contentedly at his wife's breast. "What about _your_ god, Lucius? What payment will he demand from this wee one's flesh?"

"Nothing! He will not have my son!" Narcissa cried. "Get out, woman. Get out and take your bile elsewhere."

Once Lucius had given her a pouch of Galleons, she gathered her birthing tools and scurried away. Calm once more, Narcissa smiled down at her newborn son's downy head, drawing one gentle finger over his flushed cheek.

"This one will live, Lucius. He will grow strong, and handsome, and powerful. He must have a name worthy of his destiny," she whispered.

Lucius had already known when the boy had opened his mouth with that first robust cry. 

"Draco. We will call him Draco Lucius Malfoy."

~fin~


End file.
